{"product_id":"kuro-raku-matcha-bowl-by-sasaki-shoraku-kyoto-tea-ceremony-chawan-tomobako","title":"Kuro Raku Matcha Bowl by Sasaki Shoraku | Kyoto Tea Ceremony Chawan | Tomobako","description":"Kuro Raku chawan by Sasaki Shoraku — a hand-formed black tea bowl from one of Japan's most respected Raku-tradition kilns outside the founding family. Irregular rim, bold faceted walls, deep lacquer-black glaze with warm brown undertones at the foot. Comes in original signed tomobako. #matchabowl #rakuware #teaceremony #kuroraku #japanesepottery #chawan #wabisabi #teabowl #ceramics\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e🔹 [ BASIC DETAILS ]\u003cbr\u003e• Artist: Sasaki Shoraku (佐々木松楽), Shoraku Kiln, Kameoka, Kyoto\u003cbr\u003e• Form: Kuro Raku chawan (black-glazed matcha tea bowl)\u003cbr\u003e• Dimensions: Approx. diameter 11 cm \/ height 7.7 cm\u003cbr\u003e• Provenance: Comes with original signed tomobako (artist's wooden storage box)\u003cbr\u003e• Condition: Very good — no chips, cracks, or repairs; minor surface variation consistent with hand-forming and fuigo kiln firing\u003cbr\u003e• SKU: 260409_a_2706\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e🔹 [ 基本情報 ]\u003cbr\u003e• 作家：佐々木松楽（松楽窯、京都府亀岡市）\u003cbr\u003e• 形状：黒楽茶碗\u003cbr\u003e• 寸法：口径約11cm／高さ約7.7cm\u003cbr\u003e• 付属：作者直筆・共箱付き\u003cbr\u003e• 状態：良好。割れ・欠け・補修なし。手捏ね・吹子焼成による自然な景色あり。\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e🔹 [ CULTURAL \u0026amp; ARTISTIC INSIGHT ]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Raku lineage begins in a single moment: Sen no Rikyu, the master who defined the Japanese tea ceremony, commissioned the tile-maker Chojiro to form bowls without a wheel — bowls shaped only by hand, fired briefly in a small kiln, and left to carry silence rather than spectacle. That act, in the late sixteenth century, produced the first kuro raku chawan, and the aesthetic it defined has not been fundamentally altered since.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBlack was the choice. Not merely as color, but as philosophy. The matte or lightly glossed black glaze absorbs light rather than reflecting it, drawing the eye inward rather than outward. Against the vivid, almost electric green of whisked matcha, this absorption becomes drama — the bowl as ground, the tea as luminance. This is the visual argument of kuro raku that no other ware has been able to match for five centuries.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSasaki Shoraku and the Shoraku Kiln in Kameoka, Kyoto, occupy a rare position: recognized internationally as one of the foremost Raku-tradition studios working outside the main Raku family (Raku Kichizaemon line, now in its fifteenth generation). That distinction matters. The Raku name itself is a protected designation in Japan; to work in this tradition with independent authority requires not merely technical mastery but a lineage of demonstrated cultural credibility. Shoraku has earned that credibility across decades.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA bowl like this one does not argue. It waits.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e🔹 [ 文化・芸術的考察 ]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e楽焼の起源は、ひとつの瞬間にある。茶の湯の道を完成させた千利休が、瓦職人・長次郎に命じて轆轤を使わず手で茶碗を形成させ、小さな窯で短時間焼いたこと。十六世紀末のその行為が、最初の黒楽茶碗を生み出した。\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e黒という選択は、単なる色の好みではなかった。艶を抑えた黒い釉薬は光を吸収し、視線を内へと向ける。鮮やかな緑の抹茶との対比において、その吸収は劇的な静けさとなる——茶碗が地となり、茶が光となる。この視覚的な論理は、五世紀を経た今も他の焼き物では再現できていない。\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e佐々木松楽（松楽窯、亀岡）は、楽家宗家（現十五代・樂吉左衛門）の外に在りながら、国際的にも高く評価される楽焼の作家として独自の地位を確立している。「楽」の名は日本において意匠登録に等しい重みを持ち、その伝統の中で独立した権威を持って活動することは、技術だけでなく、長年にわたる文化的な信頼の積み重ねを必要とする。\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e🔹 [ DEEP-DIVE COMMENTARY ]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe form of this bowl speaks before any biography does. The rim is intentionally irregular — not imprecision, but the deliberate record of fingers pressing clay, of a mind present in each increment of forming. The walls carry visible facets, places where the maker's hand shifted pressure and direction, and the glaze has pooled and broken across these transitions in ways that cannot be replicated or predicted. Each Shoraku bowl is structurally unrepeatable. That is not a marketing claim. It is the physical consequence of the tezukune method.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTezukune — hand-forming without a wheel — is among the most demanding ceramic techniques precisely because it offers no mechanical mediation. The wheel averages; it symmetrizes; it allows the maker to step back from the clay. Tezukune does not permit this distance. The form is the direct index of the maker's presence. When you hold this bowl, the weight distribution, the slight asymmetry of the rim, the particular thickness of the walls — all of it is the physical record of Shoraku's hands at a specific moment, irreversible.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe firing method compounds this. Raku ware is fired in a small kiln using fuigo bellows, which create rapid, intense temperature shifts rather than the gradual, controlled atmosphere of a standard kiln. The black glaze — a lead-based or feldspar-and-iron formula depending on the lineage — responds to these shifts unpredictably. What appears on this bowl's surface: the areas where black deepens toward blue-black in the well of the interior, the warm sienna-brown breaking through at the lower walls and foot, the faint crackling just visible under raking light — none of this was drawn. It was summoned.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor practitioners of chado (the way of tea), a Shoraku bowl represents something specific: a teaching bowl in the fullest sense. The weight is deliberate — substantial enough to register in two hands, light enough not to fatigue. The width of the rim suits the chasen (bamboo whisk) without forcing an unnatural arc. The interior depth is calibrated so that the matcha pools at a natural angle when the bowl is tilted toward the drinker. These are not accidents of beauty. They are the accumulated knowledge of a lineage that has been making bowls for tea since before the Edo period.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShoraku's international reputation rests partly on his Koetsu-style copies of classical masterpieces — works that demonstrated both his technical range and his historical literacy — and partly on the quiet authority of his original forms, of which this bowl is a clear example. Collectors and practitioners in Europe and North America have sought out Shoraku pieces specifically because they understand the distinction between a Raku-tradition bowl with genuine pedigree and the broader category of Japanese black pottery. This bowl carries its tomobako with Shoraku's seal: the provenance is legible, the attribution unambiguous.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo acquire a Shoraku kuro raku chawan is not to acquire an object. It is to place yourself inside a conversation that has been running for five hundred years — a conversation about silence, about the presence of the maker, about what a vessel can hold beyond its visible contents.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e🔹 [ 詳細考察 ]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eこの茶碗の形は、作家の経歴に先立って語りかけてくる。意図的に不揃いな口縁は、指が粘土に触れた記録であり、壁面の面取りは、手が圧と方向を変えた痕跡だ。釉薬はその転換点で溜まり、弾け、予測できない表情を見せる。この景色は、手捏ね（tezukune）という技法の必然的な帰結であり、複製は不可能だ。\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e轆轤なしで成形することは、機械的な媒介を持たないということでもある。轆轤は均す。手捏ねは許さない。この茶碗の重量配分、口縁のかすかな非対称、壁の厚み——すべてが、ある瞬間における松楽の手の、直接的な記録だ。\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e吹子焼成もまた、この不可逆性を深める。急激な温度変化に反応した黒釉は、見込みで深い青黒へ、腰から高台にかけて温かい飴色へと表情を変え、光を当てると微細な貫入が現れる。これは描かれたのではなく、召喚された景色だ。\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e松楽の黒楽茶碗は、茶道の修練者にとって「教える茶碗」でもある。両手に収まる重さ、茶筅を振りやすい口径、自然な角度で抹茶が溜まる見込みの深さ——これらは美しさの偶然ではなく、江戸以前から続く窯の蓄積された知識だ。\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e松楽の国際的な評価は、光悦写しの古典名碗の再現作品と、この茶碗のような独自の形式の両方に基づいている。欧米のコレクターや茶の実践者が松楽の作品を特に求めるのは、楽焼の系譜を持つ茶碗と、単なる「黒い日本の焼き物」との違いを理解しているからだ。共箱と花押が、帰属を明確に示している。\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e🔹 [ 日本語解説 ]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e【佐々木松楽 黒楽茶碗 共箱付き】\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e京都府亀岡市の松楽窯、佐々木松楽による黒楽茶碗。手捏ね成形・吹子焼成による深い黒釉と腰周りの飴色の景色が印象的。口径約11cm、高さ約7.7cm。作者共箱付きで帰属明確。割れ・欠けなし、状態良好。\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e・楽家宗家の外にあって国際的にも高く評価される松楽窯の作品。轆轤を使わない手捏ね技法と吹子焼成による一点性の高い景色が特徴。茶道の実践者にとって、茶筅の動きや抹茶の映り方まで計算された「教える茶碗」として知られる。欧米の茶道コレクターからも特に需要が高い。\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e🔹 [ SHIPPING \u0026amp; PACKAGING ]\u003cbr\u003e• Dispatch: Within 1-6 business days\u003cbr\u003e• Carrier: Japan Post EMS \/ UPS (with tracking)\u003cbr\u003e• Packaging: Carefully wrapped with protective materials","brand":"The Modern Zen Archive","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":61748342718834,"sku":"260409_a_2706","price":751.0,"currency_code":"AED","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0960\/5680\/3698\/files\/m15604351035_1.jpg?v=1775738520","url":"https:\/\/checkout.themodernzenarchive.com\/products\/kuro-raku-matcha-bowl-by-sasaki-shoraku-kyoto-tea-ceremony-chawan-tomobako","provider":"The Modern Zen Archive","version":"1.0","type":"link"}